Note to those addicted to Starbucks but who don’t like the prices.

Folgers makes a new coffee called Black Silk. It is passably good.  On sale, it is also about $4.99 for a 32oz plastic well rounded, molded handled, pop top, easy open container.  It is not whole bean, but you can’t have everything.

I learned more about Fashion For Five year olds today.  You cannot wear jeans that have lace on the bottom of the leg hem.  Even if the lace is turquoise.  Even if the lace matches the trim on the pocket, and the embroidery on the legs.  Even if your Meemaw paid $15.99 for them.

I already knew that you don’t argue with a 5 year old when the bus is only 10 minutes away and the child isn’t dressed yet, because YOU overslept by 15 minutes and everything is going not exactly badly, but certainly not swimmingly.

No, you just sigh and trek on back to the closet to find an acceptable outfit.  This time you grab four hangers, two outfits and let her choose.  It’s just better this way.

She can be rather testy.  But totally hilarious as well.  She likes to hide in the morning.  My 52 year old heart should not be put through this.

Imagine if you will….

Alarm. Dawn gets out of bed, does the usual moving around Monster, etc.  Finally gets to the hallway to wake up the kids. Goes into Pint’s room, tickles her belly, tells her it’s time to get up. She ignores me and pretends to not hear, which means I have to tickle harder. Finally I get a giggle which means I can safely leave her room to continue on my preprogrammed path to ½ Pint’s room to get her out of her little Dora Toddler Bed.

I get into ½ Pint’s room, and go over to the bed.  ½ Pint sleeps with a huge amount of ‘stuff’.  There is her Wiggles Pillow.  Her Hello Kitty Pillow.  Her Dora Pillow.  Her Squishy bead pillow.  There are FIVE wubby’s that are all stages of blue, all the same.  She is very attached to them and Meemaw has spent mega dollars on ebay finding new ones when the old ones wear out.  There is ONE pink wubby that Aunt Nursey got her.  Then, there are the covers. The Barbie princess sheets and the matching Barbie princess comforter AND the My Little Pony comforter as well.

Digging through all of this I finally realize that among all the ‘stuff’, there IS NO FIVE YEAR OLD IN THERE!

Madly panicking now, I run and look in my bedroom to see if perhaps there was a child in my bed of whom I was totally unaware.  Nope.  Back to ½ Pint’s bedroom I go to see if perhaps I missed her the first time.  Nope.  Into Pint’s room to see if perhaps she got into the bottom bunk (3/4 Pint’s weekend residence) for various and sundry reasons.  Nope.

Now I am truly and totally frantic.

I am also in my usual state of no coffee yet, and not sure how to walk, talk or function.   Blindly running now (and no, it has NOT occurred to me to simply open my mouth and yell for her) I run past the loveseat (for perhaps the fifth time) and hear a little giggle.

Whipping around I see a little 5 year old face peeking around the loveseat throw at me.

“I tricked you Meemaw!”  Grabbing her and hugging her close, I reply, “you sure did honey. Meemaw was worried when I couldn’t find you!”  Then of course, I ask her to NOT do that again.  She promises faithfully to not do it anymore, and it will be repeated at least three times a week.

It’s funny to her to watch me run back and forth and never look at the couch.  It’s NOT funny to me and the worst part is that I am not awake enough to realize it is happening over and over.  You’d think, but you’d be wrong, that coming out of my bedroom, I would look down on the loveseat which is a mere 6 feet away, and quite directly in my path, on the way to her bedroom.  Nope. Brain doesn’t function well that early.  Sorry.

Tonight is …….bill night.  ARRRGGGH

Tonight is the night I sit down at the old laptop and pay all the bills.  I don’t write out checks anymore.  If a bill cannot be paid online, it will remain unpaid.  I simply do not incur anything which cannot be paid online.

But, even still, I hate bill night.  Tomorrow is VA Pension day.  For one day we will have a fair amount of money.  Then it will dwindle down each day with each ACH transaction that hits my bank.   Sigh.

I have to figure out which bills can be put off until January so that we can figure out Christmas.  I told the girls the other day that it would be a much smaller Christmas this year. Get over it.

I have decided to raise these two differently than the other four.  It used to be nothing to spend 3 or 4 thousand dollars at Christmas.  When you have four kids, plus several extra kids, inlaws, best friends, etc, it can add up enormously.

No. For Christmas and birthdays, we are going low key this time around.